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TIFF Journal: Bad Education (2019)

Jason Gorber — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 15:00:36 +0000

Director Cory Finley takes the good will from his 2017 debut Thoroughbreds and ups the ante even further. Bad Education is a bleak, comical, and surprisingly effective film about a high school finance scandal. Writer/co-producer Mike Makowsky’s screenplay is remarkable both for its deft construction and for how close the writer is to the events...

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Missing Link Review: Barges, Trains, and Cross Atlantic Ships

Deirdre Crimmins — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 16:00:40 +0000

Stop-motion animation studio Laika might not crank out films in rapid succession, but has been incredibly consistent in the high quality of what it does release. Every Laika film has been nominated for an Oscar, and it would be surprising if Missing Link doesn’t wind up with a nomination too. However, it’s by no means...

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TIFF Journal: The Front Runner

Philip Brown — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 15:00:51 +0000

Like so many Jason Reitman productions, The Front Runner isn’t necessarily a terrible movie so much as a frustrating one. Compelling points could be made from mining the story of disgraced U.S. Senator Gary Hart and the precedent set by the collapse of his political career. Unfortunately, Reitman’s movie never quite finds a point of...

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‘The Greatest Showman’ Review: More Like the Mediocre Showman

Philip Brown — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 20:00:28 +0000

Define irony. How about a movie about the value of putting on a great show that is a mediocre show at best? Well, that’s ‘The Greatest Showman’ for you. The film is a massively expensive musical ode to old-fashioned showbiz razzmatazz that could use a little more of that good stuff itself. This is as...

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The Trailer Park: A Fictionalized Truth

M. Enois Duarte — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 12:00:13 +0000

With the summer movie season now in full swing, it’s time to look ahead at what to expect in the fall and winter. We start with a trio of tales loosely based on true stories. ‘The Greatest Showman’ Visual effects artist Michael Gracey makes his directorial debut with a musical bio-drama about P.T. Barnum, the...

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Poll: ‘Logan’ Noir or Couleur?

Josh Zyber — Wed, 24 May 2017 17:30:42 +0000

After a very successful run at the box office, director James Mangold has brought his ‘X-Men’ spinoff ‘Logan’ to Blu-ray and Ultra HD in two versions: the original color photography or a new black-and-white edition called ‘Logan Noir’. Which do you prefer? This fad of re-grading color movies into black-and-white first started with Frank Darabont,...

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‘Logan’ Review: A Farewell to the Claws

Philip Brown — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 22:25:15 +0000

Hugh Jackman claims that he’s hanging up the Wolverine claws after ‘Logan’. James Mangold’s battered and embittered love letter to the wounded warrior is one of the most pained and deep deconstructions of the pop culture icon that the character has received in any medium. From the beginning, the ‘X-Men’ movies have always been among...

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‘Eddie the Eagle’ Review: Satisfying Sap

Philip Brown — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 20:00:48 +0000

Hollywood sure loves a sentimental sports bio-pic. You get the built-in drama of a sporting event and the crowd-pleasing fuzzies of a triumph-over-adversity story along with a celebrity protagonist that a famous actor can plug into and chase Oscar nominations. We get many of these movies. Too many even. Enough that they’ve gotten tediously predictable....

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‘Pan’ Review: Not Your Daddy’s Peter

Philip Brown — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 19:00:39 +0000

Apparently it’s necessary to resurrect and remake ‘Peter Pan’ every five years. The cycle has come around again and this time fell into the unlikely hands of ‘Atonement’ and ‘Hanna’ director Joe Wright. Not content to merely go through the Neverland motions again, Wright has reinvented ‘Pan’ as a strange fantasy action origin story filled...

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‘That Sugar Film’ Review: Documentary Narcissism with a Sweet Message

Philip Brown — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 19:00:50 +0000

‘Super Size Me’ might have been a great gimmick to hinge a documentary around, but the movie also empowered people who likely shouldn’t be making documentaries or jokes to pick up a camera. The latest unfortunate soul to get in on that action is Australian Damon Gameau, who has made ‘That Sugar Film’. You can...

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‘Chappie’ Review: Not Quite RoboCop, But No Short Circuit

Philip Brown — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 20:00:34 +0000

‘District 9’ was an explosive announcement of new directorial voice, but now, two movies later, Neill Blomkamp is still struggling to top or even match it. The verdict has yet to drop as to whether he’s a one-hit wonder, but at least ‘Chappie’, his remixed vision of similar elements, is unlike anything else competing in...

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Weekend Roundtable: 2015 Oscar Snubs

Josh Zyber — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:00:27 +0000

This time ever year, voters in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences make their nominations for what they believe were the best movies of the prior year. And this time every year, viewers like us gripe about all the movies or acting performances the Academy failed to acknowledge. Well, let’s get griping. What...

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